


Canada Day

by odiko_ptino



Series: Modern AU [29]
Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Canada Day, Gen, M/M, Patriotism, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 18:23:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17027706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odiko_ptino/pseuds/odiko_ptino
Summary: The gods celebrate Icarus' new national identity.





	Canada Day

‘Why Canada’ is a question that comes up from time to time.

“Why not Canada?” is what Hermes generally replies if the question is put to him.  “You hate Canadians or something?  Got a problem with poutine and beavers?”

He made this joke in front of Icarus once, and the mortal treated all gods present (Hermes, Apollo, Helios, Artemis, and Athena) to a lecture on how Canada was far more than a collection of stereotypes about good manners and poutine and beavers.  He undermined his righteous speech a little, by being super-polite the whole way through and even apologizing twice, but no one would dream of pointing it out.

In truth, they were a bit pleased to see it.  

“It’s like the old days,” they commented to each other afterwards, privately.  “Taking pride in the national identity.  Just, instead of being from Athens, now, he’s from Canada.”

… but why Canada?

——————

Other times, Hermes lets people assume it was a joke on his part.  Just to force the sun gods to play this out in a cold, continental location, where they don’t get unlimited wonderful weather to strut around half-clothed in; and a tragically strong limit on the amount of public nudity they’ll ever get away with.  

And it’s true that watching Apollo and Helios nobly attempt to pretend that they don’t utterly hate the length and intensity of a Canadian winter… is pretty goddamn hilarious.

But the truth is, Hermes has no idea.  His only (legitimate) connection to the Underworld, is carrying souls there after they’ve died.  He has no role in their governance after they leave Styx’s shore, drifting along on Charon’s boat.  And he certainly had no (legitimate) reason to know how the reincarnation process works.

That knowledge lies with the gods of the Underworld.

Once, when Icarus is ten years old and Hermes deems it’s been long enough that he could risk asking, he visits Persephone and brings up the question because honestly, he’s curious too.

“It’s just kind of an off-the-wall choice, isn’t it?  Why’d you send him there?”

Persephone actually dropped the copy of the Chicken Fancy magazine that he’d delivered to her, and looked up to fix upon Hermes the most ball-shriveling glare he’s ever seen.

“Are you  _seriously_.  You’re standing here asking me about our reincarnation policies.  After you broke into the office and stole this guy’s paperwork and soul and initiated it yourself?!  You ballsy little shit, you’re asking  _me_  about the consequences of your little stunt – ”

So, it seems that the reasons behind Canadian!Icarus will stay a mystery forever.

——————–

The gods really do keep up on modern trends, though sometimes they like to play the part of the confused immortal who doesn’t ‘get’ how to use a credit card or drive a car. They do it a little with Icarus, though he’s starting to catch on.

It’s one of Hermes’ favorite jokes, in fact, when he chooses to reveal himself to a human: he acts out the “born sexy yesterday” trope, trolling the poor idiot along for a while… though, he secretly finds it charming, sometimes, how earnestly a person will explain their favorite snacks or television shows, when they think they’re talking to a blank slate.  But the thing is, no god needs to have it explained what a Swiss cake roll is.

There are times when the gods choose to ignore some new facet of humanity that they don’t care for – you will never convince Ares to dab, no matter how hard you try.  Hermes can attest to this.  But he knows what dabbing is, at least peripherally.  They don’t live in an ivory tower in Olympus. And even if they wanted to, Hermes and Artemis and the Erotes and Athena and Hephaestus Ganymede and Hebe and even Alcides tend to enthusiastically force everyone else to follow along anyway.

So they’re familiar with Canada Day.  Apollo did remark upon the fact that humans’ identities used to be far smaller-scale. A human used to consider themself an “Athenian” or a “Spartan”… or one of the numerous other smaller tribes, from Crete, Thrace, Macedonia… almost never would they have thought of themselves as “Greek” or “Hellenic.”  A human living in one of these societies knew nearly every other individual within that identity.

And Icarus, who is not normally particularly patriotic, feels compelled to explain to these “sexy immortals born yesterday,” about how people often still identify more with their smaller regions – school or city sport teams are huge; and often people feel closer identified with personal traits like hobbies or sexual orientation, over geographical ones.  But when there’s such a huge, enormous swath of territory that encompasses all of these mini-identities, a big day to remind everyone that we’re all Canadians at heart and if we’re cut we bleed maple syrup, is useful to keep such a huge, heterogenous group unified.

This is essentially the purpose of the original Olympic Games – the gods were present, and in fact inspired the Olympics, so they don’t really need the concept explained to them. But it’s sweet to see a little enthusiasm perk up Icarus’ ordinarily blank face as he explains to the gods what it means to be Canadian.  

It’s part of human nature. Hermes remembers watching Homer tell the Iliad, and every time, the listeners cheered whenever they heard their polis named in that enormous list of every ship that arrived at Troy.  Just enough to hear the name was enough to inspire proud cheers.  Even a little before that, when Aesop had told his tales, and he’d say “once there was a fox from Crete” – or “a goose from Athens” – just so the Cretans or Athenians listening could get a little thrill out of it.

Icarus thinks of himself as a student; as a brother; as gay… Canadian rarely figures too strongly. And yet, when the cheer goes up –

So Hermes thinks it would be a nice gesture if the gods celebrated with him.  He just muses aloud, once, in the presence of the sun gods, that the kid seems to be proud of being Canadian… it’s as good as done.

————————-

Poutine: provided by Demeter.

Hockey paraphernalia: provided by Hermes.

Beer: provided by Dionysus.

Two bemused beavers, who waddle around eating things they shouldn’t: provided by Artemis.

Maple syrup candies: provided by a dryad of the sugar maples.

(“Is that… hygienic?” Icarus will ask later.

“You’ve been eating lots of nymph byproducts your entire life,” they point out, providing a list of some popular ones featuring in Icarus’ pantry.  Icarus makes the face he always makes when he realizes the world around him is more organic and aware than he thought)

They’re all wearing a lot of red with white trim and a lot of maple leaves and flannel (save for Ares, who they wheedled, bribed and threatened into wearing a Mountie uniform).

And Apollo sings the first few bars of O Canada, while the rest of them raise their glasses of Molson and Labatt Blue and Moosehead Lager and join in, as Icarus steps off the motorcycle from behind Helios and looks at them all in confusion.

When they finish, he claps, awkward as ever, and accepts the glass of Molson that Dionysus presses into his hand and allows Helios to jam a beanie with moose antlers sticking out from the sides onto his head.

They watch him expectantly. He watches them in awkward silence, and finally clears his throat.  

“So, uh… Happy Canada Day, eh?”

The gods all cheer, raising their glasses again, and Icarus has that small smile he gets when he doesn’t want to show how pleased he is, and settles in for a long afternoon of hoser jokes and karaoke featuring exclusively Canadian singers.

————————

Later, Artemis announces it’s time for moose racing, and everyone notes that it took six beers for Icarus to be drunk enough that this seems like a great idea. He leads the charge himself towards where he imagines the race grounds are: staggering comically, face red and grinning hugely.


End file.
